Caesium nitrate or cesium nitrate is a salt with the

chemical formula A chemical formula is a way of presenting information about the chemical proportions of atoms that constitute a particular chemical compound or molecule, using chemical element symbols, numbers, and sometimes also other symbols, such as pare ...

Cs NO₃. An alkali metal nitrate, it is used in

pyrotechnic composition A pyrotechnic composition is a substance or mixture of substances designed to produce an effect by heat, light, sound, gas/smoke or a combination of these, as a result of non-detonative self-sustaining exothermic reaction, exothermic chemical reac ...

s, as a colorant and an oxidizer, e.g. in

decoys A decoy (derived from the Dutch ''de'' ''kooi'', literally "the cage" or possibly ''eenden kooi'', "Duck decoy (structure), duck cage") is usually a person, tool, device, or event which resembles what an individual or a group might be looking f ...

and illumination flares. The

caesium Caesium (IUPAC spelling; also spelled cesium in American English) is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Cs and atomic number 55. It is a soft, silvery-golden alkali metal with a melting point of , which makes it one of only f ...

emissions are chiefly due to two powerful

spectral line A spectral line is a weaker or stronger region in an otherwise uniform and continuous spectrum. It may result from emission (electromagnetic radiation), emission or absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorption of light in a narrow frequency ...

s at 852.113 nm and 894.347 nm. Caesium nitrate prisms are used in infrared spectroscopy, in

x-ray An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...

phosphor A phosphor is a substance that exhibits the phenomenon of luminescence; it emits light when exposed to some type of radiant energy. The term is used both for fluorescent or phosphorescent substances which glow on exposure to ultraviolet or ...

s, and in scintillation counters.. It is also used in making optical glasses and lenses. As with other alkali metal nitrates, caesium nitrate decomposes on gentle heating to give caesium nitrite: : Caesium also forms two unusual acid nitrates, which can be described as CsNO₃·HNO₃ and CsNO₃·2HNO₃ (melting points 100 °C and 36–38 °C respectively).

References

Caesium compounds Nitrates Pyrotechnic oxidizers Pyrotechnic colorants {{Pyrotechnics-stub